Thursday, April 15, 2010

As part of the 20sbloggers 7th blogswap, I'm really happy that Melissa has come a-visiting and written a little piece for the old pizza box. Her blog is a haven for music lovers everywhere (but mainly Canada) and she's a really great writer...

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Hi everyone! My name is Melissa and this is my very first guest post on someone’s blog. I signed up for a blog swap a couple weeks ago, and after completely forgetting about it, I got a very nice message from Conor telling me we had been paired up.2 days later and here I am trying to write a reasonably not-too-long, not-too-short post about myself and why I started blogging.

As a disclaimer, you should all know that Conor was nice enough to send me his post first so that I could have a little idea of how this whole blog swap thing works. After reading about our future as an old married couple at dinner parties, I got a bit of a better idea on how to write this out. Oh and by the way Con, I certainly hope our future isn’t so grim?! I promise I at least won’t be smoking, that’s not my thing.

So, how about a little bit about me and why I write. My blog is 85% music and my adventures on the borders of the industry. Now, I’m not some huge musical genius who can quote any song dating back from 1975, but I am in love with music TODAY. There’s something about seeing an artist or band perform that makes me feel like I know myself a little more.

If you’re looking for me, try one of my best friends’ cars, in a random city, or at a local bands’ show. There is NO better place in the world to me. The road is where everything happens. You discover the greatest new songs, you see the most beautiful views, and you spend time with the best people. Every concert I go to is like falling in love with music all over again.

Now all of this is really great and fun, but I can’t say that it’s really a blogging style or a reason that I started my blog in the first place. It is, however, the reason I keep doing it 3 years later.

I originally started blogging way too long ago to even remember the specific date but I must have been 15 or so. I eventually started writing on BlogSpot when I was about 18, and I moved over to WordPress over 3 years later. I’ve always been the kind of person who wears her heart on her sleeve- I always needed an outlet for my thoughts. Maybe that’s a big reason that I can’t live without music. To me, it’s the ultimate way to express your emotions.

I have to admit that sometimes it’s hard to remember why I keep going back to my blog. Why not a good old fashioned journal? Maybe it’s because I’ve relied on it so much over the years; maybe it’s simply through habit. I think everyone has their own reasons to keep their little space on the internet open. Conor pointed out in his post something that really made me laugh because it was just so true. He quoted George Orwell who stated that one of the reasons he writes is the sheer egoism of it all. Everybody wants to be remembered or thought of when they’re not around- has blogging really become the modern day way to do just that?

The more I think of it, the more I realize that it’s become difficult to sift through the thousands of bloggers out there to find the quality ones. Everyone seems to have something to say, but that doesn’t necessarily mean they should be publishing it online. Every once in a while I’ll come across a really GOOD blog, one that’s worth adding to my very short blog roll. I think that’s my favorite part about the blog swap. I would have never found Conor’s blog among all of them had it not been for our random pairing. Looking through his archives, I found myself laughing at his sarcasm, his humor and his (sometimes) blunt honesty. All qualities that you really do need to keep up a good blog. Hey Con, how’s that for an opening line at our future dinner parties?!

In any case, I write exactly how I speak, if that makes any sense. If I’m feeling sarcastic, I’ll write that way. If I’m feeling angry… you get the point. I don’t know if any of this is considered a ‘blogging style’ but maybe that’s a blogging style on its own. Forgive me, it’s getting late and I feel like I’m not making much sense anymore. I’ll give you an example though. I was looking over Conor’s blog and vlogs earlier, and I noticed that he does the same thing. His posts each have their own writing style, in some funny way. They each reflect a new part of him and who he is on that day.

Writing this post has probably been one of the most difficult things I’ve done all month. It’s nearly impossible to sum myself up, my thoughts on blogging and blogging styles… but there you have it. If you’ve read this far, thanks for not losing interest in my ramblings. And Conor, thanks for letting me take a little space on your blog! I’m really glad that I found your blog among the thousands out there. Keep up those incredibly entertaining vlogs of yours and keep in touch!

Monday, April 12, 2010

This is a recording of a band who I used to go and see when I worked as a music teacher in an Irish language summer school. I was a ceannaire, a sort of student supervisor, and we would go out every night drinking, it was insane.

The band, Blonderbraü, was made up of teachers from the area, and we would hang out in the pubs they played at. I think this night this was recorded, I was sitting right beside the the camera, and we made up about half the pub, it was fucking excellent.

I'm sitting at the table in my kitchen, watching my pasta cook and trying not to cry. Apparently, a watched pot never boils, but as the bubbles dance higher and higher to the lip of the pot, and eventually dribble down with a spitting shriek into the gas hob, I realise that proverbs are over-rated. I can't get off the chair to turn the gas down, so I watch my beloved penne go from al dente to pasta-puddle.

The reason I can't get out of the chair is because my legs have stopped working. They no longer do what ask them because I was mean to them earlier today. So now, I sit, morosely staring at my dinner spoiling. my stomach rumbling mercilessly.

I was back in Ireland last week, spending some time with the family and generally chilling out and at some point getting rejected AGAIN! Anyway, at some point in the week, we all went to the island where I half-grew-up and went swimming. In the Atlantic.

It was fucking freezing.

Because the water was essentially colder than the endothermic version of hell, we had to wear wetsuits. As I zipped mine up, I looked down and realised I looked like a lumpy pillowcase full of tits. Then when my wee bro, sis and I were swimming, I realised I was nowhere near as fit as I used to be. Seeing as the last time I did any exercise was in June 2009, I have come to terms with the fact that I'm now mostly made of molten cheese. So, in the vein of self-improvement, I went for a run this morning.

Here's the route I took...5 miles in total, including a workout at the Kilburn outdoor gym afterwards.

I returned to the house an hour later, lay on the floor, and tried desperately not to cry. The Guinness Baby is not long for this world, I tell thee.
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That seems quite positive right? Getting up at 5:45 to go for a run. Well it isn't, I came home from work and now find I can't use my legs. They've stopped working...

ALSO, my toes have become all blistery.

Now, if some of you might remember, I have a weird fascination with the 'Cysts and Pus' genre of youtube porn. I decided to film my own. My toes are really long (..ladies) and they're important, so when I went to pop the blisters I thought I'd add to the pantheon of Pus Porn. Yum yum.

Prob best look away if you're easily nauseated.

Now I'm lying in bed, in my jammies, trying not to sound like an old man when I move, dreading having to do my pervert shuffle tomorrow on the way to the Tube. Hopefully my legs will be gone when I wake up and I can get Spark to give me a piggy back...

Tuesday, April 6, 2010

I'm back in Derry at the moment visiting the family over easter. 10 days of convivial comfort, heat and laundry, a full fridge and all the cheddar cheese I could ever possibly want.

Work had me really run-down recently, and as such, I'd stopped blogging, was soldered into a god-awful routine, played my usual MIA japes with my friends and did all of the usual things that gets one down in the dumps when they're a bit depressed with life. A wee break is the absolute tonic, and it's really great to see my parents and wee broheim and sister again. This week is rent-free relaxathon.

As you may know, I tend to make strong opinions about things rather quickly, and recently I've been a bit off the mark in terms of judgment. Being negative and cynical is fun most of the time but not if there's no enthusiasm or attempt to take things at face value, then that would make me a bit of a twat.

So in that spirit of infectious enthusiasm, I've diverted my usual boundless energy into finding the bright side of things I've been negative about recently...starting with Chatroulette.

My previous experience of this vidcam-based chat generator involved alcohol, and a seemingly endless supply of perverted fuckwits whacking off for our amusement/mental scalding. It was a bit surreal, and made me want to use a cattle brand to sterilise my eyeballs into scotch egg pub snacks. No matter how many cold ones we threw back, the sight of a sixty year old Belgian man with assless leather chaps and his dick in his hand was oddly sobering. Yuck.

This time, I was sober to begin with, and it was the day time, when only some of the weirdos come out. I finished my coffee, sat upright on the bed and with an ouverture of knuckle-crackery and neck-crickery, I logged in.

The first site that greeted my was a skinny white torso in FUBU boxers, a forlorn dick hanging out. Lovely.

What followed was a detailed lesson on anatomy, specifically that of the serial masturbator. I should have been a fucking urologist, I could have written a thesis on middle-age sag and the likeness between a sixty year old ballsack and free-range scrambled eggs, an epistle on the hiphop-boxer-to-foreskin-ratio of you average internet sexpest. There were more dicks than at a conference of Private Investigators.

Ba Dum Tish.

However, just as I was about to log off, and tell myself to fuck all the way off for setting homework for myself during my holidays, I found myself looking at a purple fringe and a pair of extremely beautiful eyes. Extremely beautiful eyes.

I stalled, this might be a normal human, best not make any sudden movements. Remember, they're more scared of me than I am of them...

I straightened to make my face look as non I-might-whip-my-balls-out-at-any-second as possible and gave a small smile.

Me: HiShe: Hey!

Okay, all good. We had a conversation afoot.

I'd imagined that we would chat for a few minutes before my new friend would just hit 'next' and I could go and write about how I had done my homework. It lasted a bit longer.

One of the things you learn about yourself from chatroulette is exactly HOW boring you are. I explained that I was studying/training to be a lawyer, was sidetracked in construction recruitment and wanted to be a writer. I bored myself witless writing it, moreso writing it again just now. My conversational partner had manners of steel, if that's even a figure of speech, and didn't stab herself in the hand for distraction once. Not once!

Jule, for she has a name, is a student from Liepzieg, and like I say, she has extremely nice eyes. She studies English studies and loves London, but hates how Londoners can't make eye contact and how they roam through life like insular cattle. She didn't put it like that exactly, but her English was better than mine and I now feel the need to compensate by using overtly florid language. She had a lovely sense of humour, was quick to smile and laugh, and could do that European thing (mainland Europe only I'm afraid) of smoking a cigarette nonchalantly and looking as cool as Lou Reed on a polar ice-cap. When I didn't realise that Liepzeig is in Saxony and not Bavaria as I originally said, she was kind enough to not point out my mistake. She works in a cinema part-time and wants to become a professional film critic. I tried to convice to start blogging, but she said it was too personal, too open. So she was also mysterious.

I was a smidgen away from asking for her hand in wedlock when she had to leave, bloody slightly-younger people with their interesting lives and social circles. We exchanged emails, and I promised I'd send her a link to my blog. This one your reading.

So my verdict?

Chatroulette is a (frankly terrifying) natural development of the way we communicate and interact, a step further in our social evolution to an androgynous species subsisting on the ritualistic one-two of masturbatory reclusion and invasive omniscience. It is a junkie's gallery of quick-fix friendship and instant gratification for some, and a place to show the world how you and your 'boyz' are really adept at drinking low quality lager and being passive aggressive to someone half a world away. It also presents one with an enormous amount of laboured metaphors with which to describe it for future blogs.

The sushi buffet of conversation and friends may be vaccuous and rather soulless, but it IS oddly democratic and like anything in life, if you persist, you can find something that makes the whole experience worthwhile.

So try it out, I urge you. You might just find two beautiful eyes and a new friend, or at least an old Belgian fella wanking himself blind.

Friday, April 2, 2010

So tomorrow I'm flying back home to good old Ireland to visit the family for a week. The Easter weekend means I only had to book four days off work next week so I can chill out and not do fucking construction recruitment til the 12th April, which is nice.

I remember the last time I attempted to travel back to Derry, a few days after a rather nasty 'fall' I had here in Londontown, in late December. My original flight was cancelled and my parents had to book me an alternative one, which was great because hey, why not spend money on a flight three days before Christmas?

There was a fantastic moment where I had to get a £70 train to Birmingham for my flight from there and I was rather glum about how things were going for me, and a bit self-pitying and generally stupidly emo. Things were seemingly relentless in their general shite-hood (still no job, a 'bad fall', writer's block, depression, finding out Santa's not real etc etc etc) and I sat and scowled as we sped across the heart of England; tired, jaded and listening to Morrisey, because I'm a clichéd twat.

Then the sun burst and this is what I saw as we rocketed along, 'How Soon Is Now?' blaring in my ears and the hair on my neck shivering to attention:

And for some reason I was completely delighted. The fact that it was shrouded in mist was what did it. I couldn't for the life of me see where I was and didn't give a fuck. I could just imagine those fields going on and on til they reached the sea, without a soul for hundreds of miles. I was completely, truly alone, and sat in the empty carriage, grinning like an idiot.

It's weird, sometimes the tiniest of things can make you smile. Then again, sometimes it takes the coldest winter in decades, an overactive imagination, solitude and Johnny Marr's guitar virtuosity.

We'll see how tomorrow goes then. It's apparently been snowing back home all week...